Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

Erin has had a crush on her brother’s best friend Ward for as long as she can remember. But eleven years ago he disappeared from their lives—breaking Erin’s trust, and her heart. When the person they both love most—Erin’s brother Tommy—is nearly killed in a terrible crash, she and Ward are thrown back together for the first time. Their lives couldn’t be further apart. Erin still lives at home, working two jobs and dealing with a series of family disasters. Ward, now a multibillionaire entrepreneur and a household name, seems determined to make amends. But is it too late?

Liz McGinnis never imagined herself living in a luxurious gated community like The Palms. Ever since she and her family moved in, she's felt like an outsider amongst the Stepford-like wives and their obnoxiously spoiled children. Still, she's determined to make it work - if not for herself, then for her husband, Phil, who landed them this lavish home in the first place, and for her daughter, Danielle, who's about to enter high school.

Inside the walls of the Dead Letters Depot, letter detectives work to solve mysteries. Their mission is to unite lost mail with its intended recipients. But when letters arrive addressed simply to “My Great Love”, longtime letter detective William Woolf faces his greatest mystery to date. Written by a woman to the soul mate she hasn’t met yet, the missives capture William’s heart in ways he didn’t know possible.

After three marriages and a lot of living, resilient Billie Slate knows exactly what trouble love can bring. Now she’s reinvented herself as the Heartbreak Bunny, an on-call performance artist who can heal anyone who’s been burned by that four-letter word, LOVE, by hopping about and whisking away sad mementos from their past relationships. Call it magic. Call it peculiar. But her bunny costume is as perfect as her breakup mantra: SNAP OUT OF IT.

Andi has spent much of her adult life looking for the perfect man, and at 37, she's finally found him. Ethan - divorced with two daughters, Emily and Sophia - is a devoted father and even better husband. Always hoping one day she would be a mother, Andi embraces the girls like they were her own. But in Emily’s eyes, Andi is an obstacle to her father’s love, and Emily will do whatever it takes to break her down. When the dynamics between the two escalate, they threaten everything Andi believes about love, family, and motherhood....

The puppy started it. The poor thing was cold and trembling, abandoned on their front doorstep. Dash, impulsive as always, decides on the spot that they should keep it. But her husband, Andrew, thinks it's the craziest thing he's ever heard. A fight over a scruffy little dog doesn't seem like much of a reason to walk out on your husband of 20 years - but the spat over the puppy is just the last of many straws.

Bartolomeo di Crespi is the acclaimed interior decorator—not to mention the most eligible bachelor—in Our Lady of Fatima, New Jersey. From the dazzling shores of the Garden State to the legendary fabric houses of New York City, from the prickly purveyors of fine art in London to the Mediterranean coast of Italy, Bartolomeo is on a mission to bring talent, sophistication, and his aesthetic vision to his hometown. So when the renovation of the local church is scheduled, he assumes there is only one man to oversee the job.

Come hell or high water, Emmy Jo Massey will have a wedding. After three generations of Massey women with children out of wedlock, she wants the whole town of Hickory, Texas, to witness the legitimacy of her union with Logan Grady. But dream weddings aren't cheap. So she accepts a highly lucrative stint as a home health assistant to retired realtor, and town recluse, Seth Thomas - a decision her great-grandmother Tandy is dead-set against.

Fourteen years ago Melinda Campbell was 15 and a half, pregnant, and terrified. Desperate to protect her baby from a malicious grandfather and needed at home to take care of her own critically ill father, Melinda made the most generous, heart-wrenching choice of all: adoption. Now she's living the successful life her father struggled to give her but missing her daughter with a longing that shadows every joy.

Sweeping powers of description transport her listeners to another time and place. Rosanna Ley, author of best-selling The Villa and Return to Mandalay. Some memories can be forgotten.... Others won't ever go away. For renowned actor Sir Mungo, his quiet home village in Devon provides the perfect retreat. Close by are his brother and his wife, and the rural location makes his home the ideal getaway for his old friends in London.

For nearly 40 years, the Hellinger sisters of Hastings-on-Hudson - namely, Imperia (Perri), Olympia (Pia), and Augusta (Gus) - have played the roles set down by their loving but domineering mother, Carol. Perri, a mother of three, rules her four-bedroom palace in Westchester with a velvet fist, managing to fold even fitted sheets into immaculate rectangles. Pia, a gorgeous and fashionable events coordinator at a museum on the Upper East Side, who became a single mother via sperm donation, still turns heads.

What would you do if the love of your life had no memory of you? A man tries to win back the love of his life after an accident has her in a coma in this emotional, romantic drama from J. L. Perry writing as Jodi Perry. The 19th of January, 1996.... I'll never forget it. It was the day we met. I was seven and she was six. It was the day she moved in next door, and the same day I developed my first crush on a girl. Then tragedy struck. Nineteen days after our wedding day, she was in an accident that would change our lives forever.

Rita Bellamy has had enviable success as an author, but it came at the expense of her marriage. Now she’s starting over in a small lakeside cottage, slowly rebuilding the confidence that was shattered. But is the younger man next door a fun, frivolous diversion or something much more? Moving to Washington, D.C., to be with Griff should be the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Dory’s life. Yet there are adjustments, too, and sacrifices she never expected. And soon Dory must weigh the price of love against everything she hoped to gain….

Scotland, 1912. Antonia McCulloch’s life hasn’t gone the way she planned. She and her husband, Malcolm, have drifted apart; her burgeoning art career came to nothing; and when she looks in the mirror, she sees disappointment. But at least she will always have Balmarra, her family’s grand Scottish estate, and its exquisite glass house, filled with exotic plants that can take her far away. When her estranged brother’s wife, Cicely Pick, arrives unannounced, with her young daughter and enough trunks to last the summer, Antonia is instantly suspicious.

Five years. I would've stayed away longer if I hadn't received the letter. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about her, haven't missed her smile, haven't wished that things were different. The last time I saw my two best friends, I vowed to not stand in the way of their happiness, even if that meant I couldn't be a part of their lives. Cameron James and her emerald-green eyes were too much of a temptation and I couldn't stay and watch them together. Cameron deserved better than me. She deserved him. But now that I am back, things are different.

Um retrato generoso e austero — sem floreios ou exageros, sem dramaticidade ou emoções fáceis —, de uma matriarca em um momento em que lembrar e cuidar da memória e dos afetos familiares se tornou a razão de ser uma existência que se revela exemplar. A poucos meses de completar 90 anos, Catharina passa os dias em uma rotina pacata no apartamento onde mora, na zona norte de São Paulo. Depois da cegueira de um olho causada por uma degeneração macular, não escreve mais poemas com tanta frequência, mas mantém um diário com reflexões e, eventualmente, alguns versos.

Aurora York had it all together: loving parents, a steady relationship, and a promising career. But after she loses both parents unexpectedly, she can’t seem to stay on track any longer. Lonely and lost after a public meltdown that threatens her professional credibility, she’s shocked when DNA test results show a blood relative in Sicily. When her cousin reaches out online and begs her to come to Italy to meet everyone in person, Aurora makes the leap. Aurora arrives in Sicily for a month, and there she meets a colorful, dynamic family steeped in tradition.

Susan Jones, a brash and ballsy chef who hopscotches from one demanding restaurant job to the next, was barely in her 20s when she married and had a son, Henry. But after her marriage to Andrew fell apart, she ceded most of the raising of the baby to her mother-in-law, the very opinionated Edith Vale, a woman as formidable and steely as her stiff blond bouffant, the veritable helmet that helps her soldier through life. Now, after letting Henry drift away, Susan is determined to make things right.

Corey Bennett knows how to handle loss: she buries her grief, just as she buried her loved ones. After losing her parents to a tragic car accident and then her husband to cancer, Corey has focused all her attention on her career - first in law school and then on the partner track at a prestigious Atlanta law firm. When her boss insists she take a vacation, Corey balks. But two weeks on the Florida Gulf Coast, where she reconnects with Tripp, a childhood friend, prove to be profoundly rejuvenating.

There are those who never grow old because they are taken too soon. There are those who grow old without worries, enjoying everything life has to offer. There are those who desperately try to slow down the ticking clock. And then there's Betty - Betty, who mysteriously stops growing old on her 30th birthday, the same age at which her mother died. The years leave no trace on Betty's face, but as everyone around her is transformed by the relentless march of time, her once golden life begins to come apart.